Transcript
Oh that's just confusing. Is that is that real or imagined? I don't even know anymore. It's all in your head. Live. I don't feel like we've been live in a while. Where did we go from a November shaped headache? No. Shaped like a fallen Oakley. What does that even mean? It's the ESG industry's. Only weakly woke data podcast? Featuring analyst whole map mascara. Yeah, you know, you say an oak leaf shape headache, and actually now I'm thinking of it. Oh, Oakley that does make my head hurt. That's just working alongside me for philosophy years. And today is different problem and today is ESG blindfold called November 15th 2023. A quick peek around our wonderful world of random ESG, awesomeness and a delightful preview of our conversation with NYU Professor, Alison, Taylor, Alison Taylor. Yeah, Alison Taylor. That's right. Why you that's Stern? Business school anyway. It's not just all the wannabe script writers. Okay, this is real serious stuff. I honestly, I edited the the interview with Allison and we're gonna play clip of it today. And it's really hard to not play the whole thing as I was editing for the clip. Just Today's show. It was like the whole thing, her life story. Like what she did, like the book that she wrote, It's all actually, when I'm so hard. I'm hearing, is it? You were transfixed by my incredible questions? now, we don't have a sponsor anymore, which I maybe I don't know if I should say or be said, we're taking a break and sponsorships might be, might come back, we might get new sponsors. Hey, if you've always thought about sponsoring our show, now would be the time to jump in. Look, if you think it's on brand to have smart intelligent fact-based data, underneath people who recognize the absurdity of the world and aren't afraid to call it out, occasionally dropping an F-bomb. If you think that's on brand, look, you I'll just say this show, we had whole family. We pre-taped the show yesterday with Hall of Famer Doug Shaw and he said the end of the show. He said, I don't know how you guys do it. How do you, how do you do it? How do you compile this much amount of research and Analysis like on a daily basis on a daily basis? He's absolutely correct answer. That is, I don't, I don't actually know but we do have for today's show our sponsor for today's show is Free flow analytics.com. Okay, I was gonna plug instead. Tell him to shut up. I was gonna plug Allison, Taylor's new book, it's not an official sponsor but I want to plug it. It's called Higher Ground. How business can do the right thing in a turbulent World. An indispensable guide to help companies navigate the new era of ethical challenges and risks in a volatile Global landscape. Wow, that sounds. That's a lot that's intelligent. Yeah, that's really like a lot of syllables. A lot of sounds great Higher Ground. It is actually, it is an action book as in like, they talks through a problem. She's like, here's what you do, it's very practical. All right. Come on, let's do the show. All right, well you were done with that. Here we go. I got 10. Incredible awesome yes she had lines actually they're kind of packed. They're kind of packed with fervor today and then we will wrap up Today's Show by previewing our interview with Alison Taylor. What do you have like a clip? I got a clip. It's a nine minute clip from 40, minute interview that will drop tomorrow. Awesome. See Allison. See how good we are to nothing. I don't know. I don't know what that meant. Let's go General. Okay Matt this one is confusing me. General work. General Motors workers are voting against the UAW contracts. Unbelievable, you union workers? At Ford and stellantis are happy. They've been steadily a proven the contracts, but there's been opposition at GM and they're saying it's because it appears to be coming from veteran, GM workers, who are disappointed that they were able to negotiate gains like stronger, retirement benefits. I mean, wow. Look the level of self-interest here is insane to me. This is a, can I congratulate myself? No, I don't actually agree with you but go ahead and tell them why you're gonna say it. I I called the UAW negotiation, as they settled the contract dispute or settled, are quote, the contract dispute the top. That is the Apex. Well, it's all downhill from here. We're not going to see better than that, GM workers. I guess are disagreeing with you. They want more, they think that there's more negotiations to happen that you, I'm telling you that, if this gets voted down, oh my God, that contract was absolutely 100% the top. There's no way they're going to get more because the retirees are pissed off for one. They are giving a lot to the employees and the employees had a tremendous amount of Leverage. And now the retirees are holding, what they actually workers hostage, they've retired like they had their job, it's not necessarily retired workers. This is veteran workers close to retirement but That's one of my point is you're holding like what 80% of the workforce hostage but isn't that what you didn't get better retirement benefits for yourself. But, isn't that what we're learning from this older generation of Americans? Is that they just go around complaining that young people are complaining? Because when they bought a house, it was 10,000 dollars and it was easy. And now it costs a million dollars and they're, they're laughing at the younger generation for not being able to afford homes, but it's really insane. I don't know how this is actually like when we talk about this function in the House of Representatives in the United States because seven people like hate trans people and that's it. And their whole agenda is shut the government down and kill the trans people. And we're like, wow, that's a tremendous amount of dysfunction the UA W and unions are supposed to be like these leftist organizations. We don't have a different problem. It's a minority controlling the majority. That's what ends up happening and it just shows you like, compromises almost a dead art. At this point. I don't know. If you can't look at this and celebrate it as a victory for not just labor. In fact, if they vote this down, who does it help? It doesn't help their retirement benefits. What it helps is the Tesla's of the universe. Say, see, it's way worse to unionize, well, as you'll go on strike and get nothing for it. I will say in the meantime, several other car companies have already raised their wages for their workers, but but let me just say this now and now all the young workers ago, work there with no Union. Let me just say this, this is not this negotiation, this contract is not dead yet, they're still voting on it. I don't know how it works, is it is it Go by plant by plant? It's not a total overall, worker vote. I think it's like the electoral college, right? Because some plants have said, no some plants. Have said, yes. But what they're saying is that this might come down to the fact that some local union leaders are just better at explaining the deal than others. Oh, this is a great, this is a great metaphor for our own democracy, right? It's just, it just comes down to who understands and who doesn't? That's a great metaphor for our data, right? Like our data. Everything is Everything. It's like if we can translate the data, there's no reason why people wouldn't vote differently. Well, that's exactly what we're seeing. Meanwhile, it's Starbucks. Starbucks workers at hundreds of Us locations, will walk off the job on November 16th as part of a union organized action. This is on red cup day. I never heard of this red cup day. I guess is when Starbucks gives away holiday themed cups for free. I didn't know this is a thing. I don't know, the thing either, but thereby means it's like the busiest shopping day at Starbucks. All year, they're calling this, the red cup Rebellion Rebellion. Sorry and workers are calling on the company. To turn off mobile ordering on high, volume promotion days, improving Staffing, and scheduling issues, and it's a bargain more of the Union. So, so, you know, The Starbucks, the the engagement, the worker engagement at Starbucks that we covered for several years. It still hasn't reached an end game, right? Like it there's obviously still more to come in this story because we know that some locations unionize, we don't really know to what benefit, you know. Others did not even try. So something is still. No, I'm sorry to use this punch. Something is still a brewing over there at Starbucks with his labor movement. I wonder if it's gonna become a bigger thing or who knows. Well, I do know that, didn't they just raise wages for hourly workers and they added some benefits but only for, you know, only for non-union workers. So they're all right. Some union workers will benefit, but I feel like they didn't. I read that. They didn't get all the benefits. So they're continually. What are we still doing this? For just? Yeah. And now they're using because they're a union as the, the reason why they didn't get all the benefits because they have to negotiate and, and vote on it and and this is True in as much as when you're negotiating with the Union, you have to negotiate and then do something. But it doesn't mean they can't give them the benefit, you can just give them benefits, right? It's not like the union has to, like, vote on. We're gonna give you five dollars. More an hour. Oh, well, no, no, don't give us more. Unless we vote on it first because we might vote that down. That's not the way it works. Does it is, it's like so this is this is pure antagonism. Let's go over to McDonald's, the boss of McDonald's in the UK and that person actually has a name. It's Alistair macro. I don't know why they want to call him. The boss of McDonald's in the UK, like he's a nameless. Oh weird. He's a Lego piece, right? Like, what is that, like the end guy on level three and Mario? Yeah, I don't understand the business. The business was refused to name people that just their afraid of it. For some reason, he said that the company has received over 400 complaints some of which included sexual harassment, in a span of four months, sometimes up to two a week. He said that the experience of some of the fast food, chains workers were quote, truly horrific and very hard to listen to. He also said, these cases are absolutely horrendous and this comes after an investigation by the BBC in July, shedding light, on the fact that McDonald's staff were routinely harassed bullied or sexually assaulted while at work. So this is like, an ongoing Horrific Scandal that McDonald's can't seem to get under control. This is nuts. Absolutely nuts. But I don't why are we Did he just talked to them for the first time? I don't have a boss of the UK. I don't I'm unclear about this. I think what the BBC article did is is it kind of emboldened all the workers to start? Reporting these incidents. So there's certain of to kind of cascade in. I don't really know what's going on. I mean, like, did is this the first time they've ever asked for the complaints? I thought that. Yes, let's not forget that part of the problem with the McDonald's business model is the most of their locations are not operated by the corporation. Exactly. So, they're just now starting to admit that some of their friend, she's owners are horrible human beings, right? Yeah. And the BBC was forced them to do this by reporting on it. So, It but they have the power to get this information. Like they don't the corporate offices don't have to wait for a news organization to break the story that says everyone in your stores, is harassing women. Like, you don't have to wait for that story to break. You could have proactively said, we want to check in with all of our franchisees about how they think about, you know, including our workers and not discriminating and maybe not groping them, maybe. Oh, up next, Google CEO, Sundar pichai. Gives rocking. Oh really? I didn't realize that was gonna be so Gibbs. Rocking 75 minutes of 10s testimony in fortnite Anti-Trust trial. Here's the reason why I picked this article. I wanted to focus on this walking. Yeah, according to the article a times, this is part of our Southeast Asian CEO Theory. The article says, is that a Fortune Magazine at times? The soft spoken pichai looked Looks nonplussed and frustrated by the confrontational questioning. He faced other times, he came across as a professor explaining complex subjects to the jury. This is right, this is exactly why that we thought that we thought, why? The actual controllers of Google of alphabet hired. Someone like Lee, let's not forget sooner for chai a corner. Our data only has 5% of total influence because alphabet still is a duopoly controlled Yeah by Brynn and Paige. Yeah. So in fact they tried they this is exactly the reason why they hired him to be to go to these type of Trials to be soft, a soft spoken, Professor essentially. In fact, I called Sergey and Larry Page and asked him for a quote about Sundar getting grilled here. And I got a clip of the audio, okay? For two men, they And that's a Borough bus laughter. There's a lot. They were they were in a room and they were they could just hire people to be a laugh track behind them. Yeah, let's talk about two activists cases. People who could desperately use our data. This is, this is my dad's 100% correct. I'm actually I'm actually quite serious about this first activist investor value at Capital has taken a stake and Walt Disney. Value Act is the second activist investor to arrive at Disney. After Nelson, peltz's trying fun signal. That would be pushing from multiple board seats. That multi Disney activists? Yeah. What a wonderful lightning rod for activists Disney. I've really is. Well, this is the second time they've done it too. like, you know, I know everybody's angry at Disney for something valuable. I mean, you're doing something right. I know you're listening, reach out to us. We could we could come up with so many different ways to Target like which directors to go out which directors to keep whatever. We can help you find other directors to put in place with high performance or there's so we could talk about this forever. We had the data, we had the knowledge, come on. What are you waiting for call us? I don't know why you're listening to this and not calling us. I will say this. It won't come cheap. That is also correct to be in the it's gonna be in the low Millions for advice. Also a Goodyear Goodyear CEO is to step down. That's Richard Kramer is stepping down after Elliott Investment Management, basically shook the cage over there at Goodyear. So he's stepping down in 2024. And here's the reason why I pointed out this story is that according to our data Kramer only had 19% influence. There were a bunch of other powerful influence blocks over on the board at Goodyear. This is a surprise me that he couldn't. Hold on the power over there. This is the same Elliot that took a stake in Twitter, ousted Jack Dorsey because he wanted to live in Africa for 10 minutes. Tried to house, right? Yeah. Okay. So really make sure we've got the racist Elliott activists and not a different one. Well, it's actually interesting point because that, that is really got the ball rolling to suggest that maybe a Twitter needed to be take over Target, right? That might have been the start that was musk Empire, right? That was because they were worried that he was trying to open up a market to to the the most the biggest continent on our planet. That's what they're all. So got board members on the board who were friends with musk like as part of that, one of them. Yeah you got Durbin joins the board and like very was from us musk. So yeah just want to make sure I get the same one although I like that the activist managed to do it like with a 2050 Target date like he stepping down by In 2020. I tell you but 2021 is in a month and a half to tell you. Oh Nader profiles, 12 leaders who did it right in his new book, The rebellious CEO. It's a book that focuses on 12 CE. Is that NATO found to be quote wonders of values and performance. This is like a perfect for us. Um, so here's why I chose this story. Not only does it really kind of a line, a little bit with our vision, right? I mean, we're kind of a looking for that blend of values and performance, I suppose, right? I mean, kind of what we're doing data on it. Yeah. So we are looking at performance and we're the only ones to do that. So Ralph hit us up. But the reason why, I another reason why I picked this is that he the list of 12 CEOs. These are people that we never talked about which doesn't surprise me because we're usually outlining horrible CEO behavior that that needs that, we think that the board should take extra look at, but these are people like John Bogle, the Vanguard group, oh, Anita, Anita Roddick, The Body, Shop Gordon Sherman, Midas International. So I think, you know, it's just a random list of people that don't make our show. So I'm kind of I'm happy that they don't make our shows what I'm trying to wait the. So the John Bogle. I feel like I don't understand it at all. Like, I guess it's chapter 1 chapter 1 but it's a that's a group of investors who voted for nothing. Hey really voted with management 100% of the time basically and they do everything to avoid anyone looking at them. The one that stood out to me was the weirdest one. Was Busboys and Poets, Andy shallal, the CEO of Busboys and Poets. What do you think that is? Which I looked that up and it's a restaurant and a coffee shop that does events into favorites. His favorite coffee shops Ralph's favorite. He just wrote about his favorite coffee shop as like this, the leaders who do it, right. But it's like a guy who owns a coffee shop, I guess it also might be a nodding. It might be a wink to me because I was a busboy in high school and I started writing said, you know, writing in college. So it's talking about me, it's possible. And look where you got. Yeah. I will say this being a busboy better than a waiter because you share the tips and you don't crying every night. You don't have to yeah yelling at Yeah, no sexual harassment. Speaking of horrible CEOs, there's an article out of who cares futurism what is futurism? You know, Bloggie article place this is based on reporting from Reuters. There's a new Reuters investigation about a SpaceX worker that died, nine years ago and the company kept it, secret not only even worse, although, I don't know how it could be worse than that. According to a new investigation at a Reuters, there have been over 600 unreported, injuries out of SpaceX a very severity, despite it being a regulatory requirement to report, all of the any injury to OSHA. So this is what's going on, right? I am totally shocked. Yeah, that whoever the owner is of SpaceX. What regulations like from OSHA. Am totally and utterly shocked. When are we gonna get to the final straw with this dude, when is, when is the board of Tesla gonna be like, this guy's reputational risk is too much when we're gonna pull the. I mean, like, we just saw a proxy that listed Vince McMahon as a risk factor to the company, he's the executive chair of like they just said, like, I mean, they could have just said as a sentence, Vincent man is a risk to our company and then just moved on to the next next weeks risk factor. I don't understand what point a risk factor becomes such a liability as you could just vote that guy out. In fact, everyone, hey, let's look Does Elon Musk own dual class shares. He does not, you can vote him out of Tesla tomorrow if you want to. I mean I should add that again. These are 600 unreported injuries uncovered by Reuters. So that doesn't mean that's all, that's it. I mean, that's never all, that's what they could find. All right, let's get super nerdy. You're going to hate this one. Oh, good analysts from Libero never heard of them but this isn't they're not great. Has hit out msci. Over its ESG ratings methodology warning that they may feature monetary conflicts of interest. Oh, hate the okay, so these are wrong. Okay, I want to talk about this. So he so comparing msci, ESG research, which receives most of its revenue from selling index licenses and refinitiv which gains the majority of its revenue from selling data. The paper found that ESG ratings from msci, were systematically higher. Than the ultimate, the claim that it seems that msci ESG ratings change, if the share price performance of a company changes. Yeah. Okay go ahead. I can tell you your there's a big pregnant pause coming out of. I can't wait to hear your rebuttal. I reached out to the authors of this when I read paper called out of Columbia and Emory called ESG ratings of ESG index providers came out in September. Yeah so I reached out to actually one of the offer authors, she from Raj kapole who is out of Columbia? Sure. I reached out to him and said I had I was very nice. I said like I I think the paper actually is incredibly misleading because nowhere in the paper, do they actually talk to an analyst, right? Like they're using they they use like number. They basically just said like, oh, the ratings are inflated and we found it to be like, statistically significant and therefore, where implying that there is a monetary incentive. Yeah, the first part could be true, but the jump to the conclusion that there are May feature monetary conflicts of interest, that's a bit. But yeah, the way they got there was to compare msci's rating. So they just did one to one msci to refinitiv and I said, do you know the difference on how those ratings are constructed and they don't they don't know the difference like so refinance model is called as a double disclosure model, the I'll get totally wonky. When I go there, go ahead. I already. I already stopped recording so you can keep talking with you. So the way the model works for infinitive is they basically say Did you disclose a thing? Did everyone else disclose a thing? And if you disorders something that no one else did you get credit and nobody else did. You don't get credit and then they have like some little bells and whistles that they had on top of that, like controversies and things like that, right? For the most part. It's a disclosure based model HEI. 60% of the model is about risk and Regulatory filings, not voluntary disclosures so the models are totally different and we know they're uncorrelated. So what they did was they tried to make the models more correlated. Yeah, not to mention that they're they're correct me from wrong, but they're mistaken in this sense that msci. ESG research is a segment of msci and it has its own budget, right? Is responsible for its own Revenue generation actually firewall. Yeah, it's not. It's misleading to suggest that it's getting money from the index part, of msci. That's So the way it works inside of msci and this is why I wrote to them. Like I wish you just talk like I'm not in msci anymore. I can tell you how this work because the time period was when we worked there actually and I said the way it works, is ESG creates a rating using data that they collect by hand themselves like mostly Grunts. Yeah, I can show you my paycheck and improve that. There were no monetary, I can show you now. I was like they're dirty for my digging that. No bribes in my paycheck, unfortunately, and then the ratings are done, and then the ratings get published, you know, to their clients. And then the index product team comes over and says, we're going to use that to create an index. I can, in fact, I can prove it was a firewall. I can prove there was a firewall MSI, by saying that nobody important ever talked to me when I was, that's true. Yeah, that's what that I can. I can confirm. So, I reached out and I said this to the author of it. In fact, the level of sort of, pomposity, He took my email, forwarded, it to his team and said, effectively. Do you think we should try to talk to him? Oh, and then let me know their academics. Why wouldn't you just got there? More side of the coin. They basically said he, then he said let's check and make sure that the the that our findings are robust because we can put the onus on me to explain why they're not and and that things may have changed since he left except that the time period they're looking at is the time here, I was there. And he implied that like I might be off my rocker. And, and then I had to write a long email back being explaining everything I explained to you. Now, I didn't think you have so much to say about this, well, because I actually reached out and now they're getting headlines about this, and it's so fucking wrong. Well, the headline, is it be like, I think it's sued. I really do now. The headline is coming from an analyst who read the paper and is treating it like gospel. That's what that's the maybe you can reach out to him maybe he can reach out to him. Like like there's no point, right? Like at this point we're so we don't know nobody knows what they're doing and everybody's looking for clickbaity headlines. In fact that the way they titled the paper was basically that like there's some duplicitous dark room that in msci. They're rubbing their hands together and adding companies on indexes because this is an incentive monetary incentive to do that. I got 0 extra pay, I was executive on the ESG team, got 0 extra pay about indexes. I wasn't I didn't even Even know who worked in half of the index team and no one actually that way it just doesn't exist. So yeah I have a lot to say because they basically said I might be off my rocker and the onus is on me to prove to them. What I know is true and I was like, what a bunch of fucking assholes. You guys are. Oh, why I want to make clear to be clear, that's it. I'm not calling you guys assholes. So if you still want to reach out and and come on the show, I'm happy to have you is this is over a month ago. I wrote these emails and they didn't they then they ceased responding, they're right at all out. They're probably just shocked at anybody cared or read the paper. I think they're shocked that they're human beings who actually work in these places like that. They think it's just numbers you can bring backwards and maintain actual knowledge about the process. Well to me see I have a lot to say. All right. And finally as a segue to our last to our clip from Alison Taylor, there is a ya article today out of BBC out of the BBC called. I like this title. Actually, how ESG came to me. Everything and nothing. I think that's perfect. Actually. Ah, this is talking about the fragility of the entire ESG, movement and some aspects, a major Catalyst for its downfall. May well, lie in its name fall which may well in its name which has morphed into an umbrella catchphrase with little concrete meeting, what they're talking about is companies that rush to use the ESG label. And then now shed the label and tailor, the reason why I picked this article is because they quote Alison Taylor or clinical associate professor and NYU Stern school about this very story and she says, Uh, to she said, to, to the article, I explained to my students that there was a time when business was politically neutral, they tell me that's not an option anymore. So that's kind of a good segue into our interview with Alison. That is a good segue and let me just say, like there was a, I actually, there was an article by aswath damodaran. Who's the valuation professor at NYU? Whoa, Stern so Stern. Right? And he wrote ESG, rip is dead, whatever. It's like it should have never existed and you talk about the label. No, no, he's talking about. Yes, he conflate he's a confer. He just said, ESG was set out to do good in the world and it failed miserably and it didn't have anything to do with evaluation either in after didn't do good they pivoted to evaluation and after it didn't do evaluation if it was other things like he's doing like a thing. Well, here's where here he's wrong. And And where I appreciate Alison Taylor because she actually talks about that in this article. She says that although her students may not be looking for commitments that are designated as ESG initiatives. They do hold the view that businesses are all in society is one that must recognize the movements around them whether they be diversity initiatives or divestment from fossil fuel. So the point being is that, is that, you know, we're getting confused by the label and there is things aren't dying, right? I mean, that's where he's wrong. The thing that's confusing is that it's just the data set and it's badly, and because it's not that young people don't care about, this existential crisis going on in the issue industry, right? Because they're still gonna push forward with things that matter. And those things are not going to go away because Tariq fancy is winding about it. Well, you actually it is a good segue because tomorrow, the interview will drop the full interview. And we discuss a little bit about this sort of like political. She called it split screening, in the interview that we did, you can listen to the whole thing there but here is the Amazing, Alison, Taylor explaining she in this clip. She's going to talk about transparency. We're going to we're gonna she's gonna talk about transparency, not being necessarily the Panacea. Here's Alison. Taylor, we are with Alison Taylor. The author of Higher Ground, how business can do the right thing in a turbulent World, which actually comes out in February of next year, which makes me feel incredibly special because I've read the whole thing already. Like, that's never happened to me in my life, where someone was, like, write a whole book. I read. That's never happened. I've never read a book. She's also the clinical professor at NYU Stern School of Business and I want to start with the fact that your bio like that I read is doesn't do justice to the by the there's one line in the book that I the quote is in my 12 years as a corporate intelligence specialist, which please tell me that's a fabulous and like Secretive and you like you're in a corporate ninja, because that's how it sounds, was that what it was like? I mean, it was really a lot of fun and I I was first of all and this job head of middle. In Africa investigations and then head of the Americas. So, I spent a lot of time in Lagos. I spent a lot of time drinking with journalists and bars. I spent a bit of time in Dubai and I, I mean, I guess at the end of the day, I'm incredibly nosy and I like to gossip. So if that is not just, this is the perfect job. I really had a lot of fun. Yeah. You sure you sort of described ESG data really gossiped in nosy? Well, I mean, sort of I actually the book is full of, like, these story nuggets that are amazing. They're the most damning one to me was the Nazi story which I'm sure I might be saying wrong. But there there was a there's like quotes in there like about how one immediate problem we faced was that compliance teams were asking questions that were so much and somewhere between difficult and impossible to answer and then goes to there's simply no neat Paper Trails the long nights. Spent in hotel bars with well-connected sources. Usually raise more questions than they answered. It really does sound like, you're wearing all black, like, rooting through the trash of of like, like supply chain, to figure out who owns this company, it has been known, it was known. Yeah, I mean that was I spent my time, this was something that it was an industry that in the 90s was pretty Sneezy, it was like Hops and counterintelligence. And then after nine, eleven, everybody started to get obsessed with corruption and terrorist Finance in money laundering and the industry pivoted to investigating corruption. But I think this is obviously Salient to how I approach questions of ESG more recently because this is where I develop my nasty Suspicious Mind and not really anything anybody tells you. So, that proved to be a very useful mindset when I moved over into sustainability, but it also when I moved over into the sustainability, raised, a lot of questions about what corporations were up to. Because there was this very siloed approach between all the nice stories, we tell in sustainability, wonderful things we're doing and then what was actually happening when I was working with the lawyers. So, yeah. So when you see a press release, come out of a company and generally talking about large companies, Do you immediately laugh? Or giggle? Or like you? You're like, you're like Fox, Mulder and and and and, and Scully you trust nothing, right? Or is it like, is there nuggets that you see, when you see some of that stuff? Do you flash back? And you're like, you know what? This nugget seems true. And the rest of this definitely feels. Like, bulshit I guess I, I would say having if you spend a long time in this field, you get good instincts with things. I think I have good instincts, usually for where to look and what might be more or less credible. But, you know, I mean, this highlights a big problem in this whole space in general, right? Not to cut a jump to these big themes but we act very often. As if a company is just more transparent, we will all collectively be able to sniff out what is bullshit or not, and hold them accountable in some way, no one ever fully spells out. And I think, because we know, like, if you spend any time in the supermarket, wandering, what kind of eggs or coffee to buy? It's overwhelming, it's confusing. We've all got enough to do and I don't know how we got into this idea that the public is somehow supposed to hold Corporate America accountable because it's hard even if you've got a lot of expertise. So yeah, I think we're in this weird conversation where we're kind of encouraging corporations to bulshit. And then getting very angry with them when they do. Yeah, let's talk about the disclosure issue because it's very prominent in the book like like that the the recognition that disclosure isn't the solution, right? Like and and the double-edged nature of disclosure. Yeah. Why is it not the solution? Damian is a, Know like full transparency like like he's all the way at the other end of the spectrum like make everybody do stand-up comedy routines and record them and then make those public like that that kind of thing. I think you know I mean I'm I don't think transparency is bad per se. I just think we're telling this weird story. If you look at the CDP website, for example, and what it was saying when when it was founded in 2000, it's kind of like we're gonna push all these companies to disclose and then we're going to hold them accountable and then we're going to drive change and Tackle climate change. I think we need to just recognize that it's now, 23 years later and we're still arguing about what and when to disclose and we still active, this is going to be a Panacea when it in fact, isn't I think all so we don't acknowledge company disclosed it just a massively complicated even when they're not trying to light. So the notion, if we just get more information will be able to hold these entities accountable in some way that's never fully spelled out. I think it's wishful thinking and I think it gets it's a lot of job creation for the conscience, written, children of Boomers. It makes a lot of people feel like they're doing a bunch of stuff. But when I look out there I'm like, wow there are a lot of people working on information on a lot. Not a lot of people working on actually changing anything. So that's what worries me about this. We treat it. I agree with you but I wonder is there not an unintended consequence to asking anyone to disclose anything about that? Like if I had to disclose my relationship history to everybody when I like met a new partner, wouldn't it? Kind of make me a better partner to the next one. Like if I had to admit some of the stuff that I did wrong and like, you know what I mean? Like, I just think that like and then they would know one would date you. Okay, but that's fine. But I'm just saying like, is there not a? Is there not a positive unintended consequence that by making companies? Just tell us who they are to the best of the, of their ability. That as a society. We're kind of, we're at least like edging towards more, proper behavior. I don't know, I mean, maybe I'm Pollyanna about this. Certainly puts in place, a lot of very expensive efforts by companies to tell us who they are. I'm thinking about the recent Apple ad, and I just don't even know, sure, but I'm sure that they're saving Mother Earth at the same time. There's I use an example from the book about, how kind of Congress got ruined by all this transparency. No one can do deals in a, you know, behind the scenes and get things agree. It's far too awful to look. Like you might be cooperating with the other side because we're so polarized. So there are lots of instances where transparency or feeling like you're being looked at the whole time being like you're like asked like, you know, look like you're being asked to perform there's now this kind of tendency with the ESG data. We've got to have it all real time so that we can all out there. Somehow hold these companies accountable in a way that isn't happening. So we sort of have got this idea, that more and more and more and more data is going to somehow that's true. It isn't? I will say you, you bring out. But something that really hit me close to the heart when you talk about, like, there's the transparency but we know we rarely think about the receiver of the data, right? And we, well, we do when we're standing in the supermarket, trying to figure out what coffee to buy. We are the receiver I spoke at a t-com, right? Some people. There were like we can't even fit all the certifications on the packet anymore. Yeah. Helping I don't know who we're helping. I also think this is easier to see the problem with this. If we think in human terms you know. Transparency is just another word for constant surveillance. If you put it that way right I don't think humans respond very well to the notion that their email and everything they're doing at their computers is being tracked by their employer. And I don't know that corporate entities respond very well to the notion that state holders are evaluating them and pointing fingers at them the whole time. I think the other thing that's really interesting is in the sustainability Community, we tell companies this weird story which is, if you're just more transparent, stakeholders will trust you and you'll have a better reputation and your drive more shareholder value. This isn't true. We tend to attack off and the best performers, not the worst performers, the best ways to be is in the middle of the pack with your head down, we punish the best company is so we're telling people a story that isn't true and then we're not surprised. Skepticism. That was Alison Taylor. You still? Yeah, you're right. It wasn't us, know, it was us but the third person was in us, right? The woman. That's not us. Anyway. Yeah, she's I'm confused and us. She was much better than us. That's Damien Rallis hazelnut Rallis. He's not as hazelnut Rallis. Well, you drink hazelnut coffee once. That's what it's gonna be for the rest of my life. That's fine. I'm analyst whole mattress. Carding we are free float. This was woke Wednesday. Come back on Friday. For our weekly wrap up and stay tuned tomorrow for the full interview with Alison. And next week, we're gonna have some new stuff possibly that we're gonna launch with Doug Shaw, the Hall of Fame governance hall of fame or Doug child. Agreed to be on our show again, so stay tuned for that until then. Goodbye.